How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)

Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by MrGilbert on Friday February 28, 2020 @04:20PM (#22446472)

I'm impressed how far back you've managed to come in your history. An uncle of mine did something similiar some 20 years ago. He managed to get to the point by the end of 1890 where we realized that our grand-grandfather was a Kuckuckskind [1] - and part of our family immigrated to the US.

[1]: A "Kuckuckskind" (German for "cuckoo's child") is a child who's social father is not their biological father. However, this is unkown to both the child and the father, only the mother knows this. I didn't find prove if this is an actual english analogy, so... here you go.

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Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by js2 on Friday February 28, 2020 @04:46PM (#22446717)

I did most of my research just using ancestry.com. The U.S. censuses and NY state censuses are gold for this kind of thing.

My ancestry is from Romania, Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. I haven't been able to track back into Eastern Europe except for Poland, where a relative hired a professional genealogist who managed to go back to the 1700s. I have no way to verify that information is accurate. On the Romanian branch, I have third cousins who only immigrated to the US as adults and we were able to piece together some bits from photos and postcards that were passed down.

At some point, I'd like to figure out the provenance of my surname (Soffian). Typically names ending in "ian" are Armenian, but I'm fairly confident the Soffian branch of my ancestry is from Ukraine. (Armenia never had much of a Jewish population so it would be unlikely.)

I have a friend who tracked his ancestry into English royalty. He's got a tree with over 10,000 names on it.

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Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by peterwoerner on Friday February 28, 2020 @05:16PM (#22446920)

Americans have the same thing, the man is who thinks he is the father is called a cuckold. The term is used predominantly by less savory corners of internet who have broadened its use.

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Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by poulsbohemian on Saturday February 29, 2020 @01:47AM (#22449320)

I'm kinda fascinated at how you came to this understanding - would seem like if the child didn't know and it otherwise remained a secret, that it would be very difficult to determine in the historical record.

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Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by Anon84 on Friday February 28, 2020 @04:27PM (#22446538)

Wouldn't this just be a bastard child?

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Re:How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017) by Seenso on Friday February 28, 2020 @04:36PM (#22446623)

I don't think so. Isn't a bastard a child born to an unmarried mother?

In the cuckoo's child case, as far society knows the child has two legitimately married parents.

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